“One of Corbyn’s closest aides laughed when advised by a long-serving party official about what Corbyn should do to tackle anti-Semitism in the party,” said a former Labour official.
By World Israel News Staff
A BBC Panorama program that aired Wednesday has created even more controversy surrounding the issue of widespread anti-Semitism within the British Labour Party.
The program spoke to former Labour officials “who alleged they had to deal with a huge increase in anti-Semitism complaints since [Jeremy] Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015.”
Seven of the eight former officials interviewed, says BBC, worked in the Complaints and Disputes Department, including “four [who] chose to speak publicly despite signing non-disclosure agreements.”
According to the British public broadcaster, they alleged that Corbyn’s leadership team “interfered in disciplinary processes.”
Statements made by the former officials, said the BBC, included accusations that “the leader’s office was ‘angry and obstructive’ when it came to the issue; officials brought in by the party’s general secretary, Jennie Formby, ‘overruled’ some of their disciplinary decisions and ‘downgraded’ punishments to a ‘slap on the wrist;’ and, Seumas Milne, one of Corbyn’s closest aides, laughed when advised by a long-serving party official about what Corbyn should do to tackle anti-Semitism in the party.”
On its website, BBC notes that “Labour has rejected claims of interference and described the program as ‘seriously inaccurate’ and ‘politically one-sided.'” The party charged that the interviewees were “disaffected former officials” with “personal and political axes to grind” who had “always opposed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership [and] worked to actively undermine it,” the BBC reported.
Labour’s Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the program “broke his heart.”
British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis tweeted in response to the program: “This is no longer a question of the leadership’s inability to deal with the scourge of anti-Semitism, but of its direct complicity in it.”